


he must be prepared how to survive you

by write_away



Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pining, alex really really wishes he could let them, established Mark/Oliver, mark and oliver really really want to love alex, not TCT compliant, pre-STT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_away/pseuds/write_away
Summary: Mark truly hadn’t expected Alex to be so enthusiastic when Oliver first mentioned taking a trip to the beach.“I didn’t take you for an ocean sort of guy,” Mark had admitted after listening to the man wax lyrical about waves for five minutes. “Kind of thought with the fire and all, it would be… I don’t know. Unappealing?”Alex had just shrugged. “Fires need to be put out eventually. Anyway, I’m from California.”Oliver nearly spat out his drink. “Oh god, don’t tell me you were a surfer or something,” he said, already taking out his phone to program “California Girls” as Alex’s new ringtone. “And if you were, I demand pictures of you in those stupid suits.”Mark knows that Oliver would like any picture of Alex, but he privately agrees that a wetsuit would be a nice way to start their compilation.Mark and Oliver take Alex to the beach and wait as long as they need to.
Relationships: Mark Bryant/Alex Chen/Oliver Ritz, Mark Bryant/Oliver Ritz
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Happy Birthday Mark!





	he must be prepared how to survive you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boston_sized_city](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boston_sized_city/gifts).



> I wrote this... in less than 2.5 hours. I'm honestly not sure how it happened. Happy birthday, Mark! 
> 
> This is not TCT-compliant, but takes place a few years after TAMA. However, it _is_ compliant with my _A Neon Darkness_ fic, "take no solace in your answers" so check that out if you're looking for some angst!
> 
> Title is from “Song of the Sea” by Rainer Maria Rilke. 

“Song of the Sea”   
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Timeless sea breezes,  
sea-wind of the night:  
you come for no one;  
if someone should wake,  
he must be prepared  
how to survive you.

Timeless sea breezes,  
that for aeons have  
blown ancient rocks,  
you are purest space  
coming from afar…

Oh, how a fruit-bearing  
fig tree feels your coming  
high up in the moonlight.

* * *

It’s still early morning when Mark pulls up to Alex’s place, the type of dawn where stars peek through pink clouds and leave the whole world like a hazy dream. Oliver yawns in the passenger seat, still too sleepy to snipe about how Mark ran over the curb on the last turn.

Alex is waiting for them outside, a drawstring bag slung over his shoulders and face still shiny from recent sunscreen application. The last few years have been kind to him; his gauntness has been chased away, and his eyes sometimes spark with joy instead of fear. Mark can’t help but laugh at the spring in the other man’s step as he bounces off the porch.

“You’re up early,” Oliver comments as Alex slides into the backseat. Mark can feel a prickle of heat in his gut at the proximity, but hell knows if it’s pyrotechnics or - or something else. 

Alex clicks his seatbelt shut. “Mark said six,” he says and Mark sees him shrug in the rearview mirror. “Anyway, I’m a morning person.”

Oliver snorts and takes a long sip of coffee from his thermos. “Mark drives like a tortoise, and not the one from the dumb fable. Six actually means eight.”

Mark rolls his eyes as he puts the car in reverse and twists his spine - feels it crack, oh _god_ , he is getting old - so he can smile at Alex as he backs out of the spot. 

Alex smiles back. Oliver, still grumpy, lays his hand over Mark’s and squeezes. 

It’s kind of a perfect morning.

* * *

Mark truly hadn’t expected Alex to be so enthusiastic when Oliver first mentioned taking a trip to the beach.

“I didn’t take you for an ocean sort of guy,” Mark had admitted after listening to the man wax lyrical about waves for five minutes. “Kind of thought with the fire and all, it would be… I don’t know. Unappealing?”

Alex had just shrugged. “Fires need to be put out eventually. Anyway, I’m from California.” 

Oliver nearly spat out his drink. “Oh god, don’t tell me you were a surfer or something,” he said, already taking out his phone to program “California Girls” as Alex’s new ringtone. “And if you were, I demand pictures of you in those stupid suits.”

Mark knows that Oliver would like any picture of Alex, but he privately agrees that a wetsuit would be a nice way to start their compilation. 

Alex is, unfortunately, not in a wetsuit as they stroll down the path, but his tank top _does_ stretch nicely across his shoulders when he offers to help Oliver carry the beach chairs down to the sand. Mark lags behind a few steps to snap a picture of their silhouettes haloed in the heat, bodies curving toward each other as they stumble over their own feet and chair legs. 

He tries to capture the moment their heads both tilt back in unified laughter but his breath catches and his fingers fumble. He tries to commit it to memory instead.

It takes some time to find a spot they can all agree on - Oliver wants the shade, Alex wants the tide, and Mark just wants to listen to them bicker happily for as long as he can - but it’s not hard to claim it once they settle. The beach is practically empty this early, and there’s a chill in the sand that Mark can’t help but dig his toes into as Oliver unpacks the breakfast they’d made before the sun was even out. 

They lay out a towel and picnic on cold sausage and egg wraps in a peaceful sort of quiet. Alex presses his cheek against the sand as if he’s begging it to welcome him into its embrace, Mark takes forty pictures of the seagull that is trying to steal his Cheetos, and Oliver decides to name the seagull Snails. It’s an easy sort of morning, nothing but sky and space and _sun_.

It’s been years now, and Mark still doesn’t think he’ll ever take the sun for granted again. He doesn’t need to ask to know that Alex and Oliver feel the same way. 

By ten, the rest of the world has started to wake up, and their once-private beach starts to fill with families and couples looking to enjoy the last dregs of summertime. Mark can’t really begrudge them that luxury, though he finds himself wishing for just one more hour alone with his boyfriend and - well. Whatever Alex is to them.

Mark doesn’t have the courage to ask, but he thinks Alex knows. 

Mark has already taken about a dozen pictures of Oliver snoring gently in the beach chair for blackmail purposes and is tossing Cheetos at Snails in payment for being such a good photography model all morning when Alex tugs on his elbow. 

“Let’s go for a swim,” he suggests, and Mark can’t imagine ever saying no.

They wake Oliver with a handful of sand down his back, but he declines to join - though Mark thinks their tactics were perfectly convincing and cute - so they task him with finding some ice cream and head down to the waves. 

Mark’s never actually been a fan of the ocean. Joan tells him it’s because he got frightened when he was knocked over by a wave when he was too young to remember, and his parents didn’t actually care if he spent their beach trips looking for shells and sea glass instead of playing in the water, so it’s not something he’s ever found it prudent to explore with himself, with his therapist, or with his friends. 

_Alex,_ however, apparently loves the ocean. 

“Can you feel that?” he asks as they step into the wet, squishy sand at the tideline. Alex lays his hand over Mark’s wrist, the skin soft and warm. Mark feels that spark in his gut again, but this time, it licks up his veins like gasoline. 

He frowns. “Is that -?”

“Yeah,” Alex says softly and bends down to scoop up a shell that shimmers with droplets. His grin is lopsided and adorable and _scared_ , and Mark doesn’t understand why. “Your sister hires good people. They’re working on a dosage that, well. _Works.”_

That’s been a goal of the AM for a long time now - a suppressant that doesn’t just lock down your ability and trap it inside like a prisoner without due process. A suppressant that weakens instead of kills. Mark has heard about these trials through Joan, through Sam, when they told him gently that he wouldn’t be an effective candidate for them as if he’d ever volunteer. 

He didn’t know that Alex had done it.

“So you can make fire again?” Mark thinks he understands the spark in Alex’s eyes lately now, the life that’s been poured back into him. He’s always been wistful when he’s talked about his ability before; if he can access it again, he must be thrilled. “That’s amazing!”

“Yeah,” Alex says and some tension Mark hadn’t noticed leaks out of his shoulders. “I should’ve said something sooner, but -”

Mark holds up a hand to stop him. “I get it. You don’t need to explain.” To be honest, Mark doesn’t get it, not really, but Alex can’t read minds or emotions, so he figures it’s worth the white lie. 

Still, Alex’s nervous smile doesn’t fade. “It’s nice,” he admits. “But sometimes, it itches.”

And Mark can feel that now, can feel how the heat grows, slow and liquid and uncontained, uncontrollable. Alex looks steady, but now he can see how his fingers tremble.

Mark gestures toward the horizon, toward the endless sprawl of blue. “Fires have to be put out,” he says and lets himself be pulled through seafoam. 

It’s hard to tear his eyes away as Alex lowers himself into the water, so Mark doesn’t. He watches intently, wishes his camera could be in his hands to preserve this moment, wishes he had it in him to reach out and be an anchor as Alex submerges himself completely. The waves ripple over his head.

Mark aches to join him, aches to grasp his hand and hold on tight, aches to just _ask_ and offer and plead because maybe that will extinguish the flame that makes him feel like a love letter thrown in the fire, edges curling and charring into ash, but -

He’s _scared_. 

He spares a glance at the shore where Oliver is waiting for them there, towels draped over his arm and a bottle of iced tea in his hand, all fond angles and a protective, fierce expression across his face. 

Mark is so entranced that he doesn’t notice Alex emerging to tackle him from behind.

The water on his skin is so cold that he’s sure he’s going to create steam, but that seems irrelevant when he’s got salt water in his nose and Alex’s breath on his cheek. They toss each other into the waves until they get bored, then rush out of the water together, hand-in-hand, to drag Oliver in with them. He tosses the towels to the side and makes a feeble protest all while dropping strands of seaweed in their hair as they tumble together.

Mark wishes he could stay here forever.

Alex eventually tires of showing off how deep he can swim, and Mark tires of dunking Oliver whenever he starts to ramble about the different species of jellyfish, and Oliver tires of trying to educate Mark about different species of jellyfish. They float instead, linked at the elbows with Alex safely nestled between.

They lay like that, giggling into each other’s shoulders as they rock, and the silence that falls over them feels right. They watch the clouds drift and hold on tight.

Alex is the one to break the silence. “I don’t know why you’re still waiting for me,” he whispers. It’s like he wishes the wind would carry his confession away. 

Mark opens his mouth, tries to form words, but they get stuck in his throat. He sucks in a deep breath, then another. _I love you,_ he wants to say. _We love you._ But he’s no good with words, and his camera sits in its case, out of reach. 

Oliver’s response cuts through with a confidence Mark wishes he could steal. “I don’t know why we’d ever stop,” he says simply. It’s enough. 

Later, they will race back to shore and Mark will come in dead last. Snails will try to steal their lunch, and Mark will snap about a million pictures of Alex and Oliver building sandcastles with only their hands. They will get sunburned and pick up aloe vera on the way home. They will watch a movie in the air conditioned bliss of Alex’s apartment while eating ice cream from the carton. They will be happier than they’ve been in years. 

Someday, Mark knows, they will all be less scared. Someday, they will invite Alex to join them on their couch, and their bed, and their lives. Someday, they will be able to ask and he will be able to answer.

For now, though, it’s all they can do to float.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed <3 
> 
> Alternate title: "nothing comes close to the west coast" from "California Girls"


End file.
